30.03.07 - RWANDA/UGANDA - 5.000 RWANDANS TO BE DEPORTED FROM UGANDA

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Arusha, March 30, 2007(FH) – Uganda has warned it will deport 5000 Rwandans staying in the country illegally, the Ugandan newspaper Daily Monitor said that the warning was issued at a meeting held last week in Kigali, Rwanda.   The meeting was attended by the Rwandan delegation that included Foreign Affairs Minister Charles Murigande and the head of external security Joseph Nzabamwita and Ugandans officials who indicated that Rwanda is given just less than two months to repatriate its people living in Uganda as illegal immigrants.   The Ugandan ambassador to Rwanda Richard Kabonero who attended the meeting said that the country will be obliged to deport them forcefully if they will not accept to voluntarily repatriated. He added that they are neither refugees nor asylum seekers.   Other sources stated that most of them including the Kibati group were expelled from Tanzania three years ago and as they didn’t go back to their country, they headed for Uganda.   The Ugandan Minister for Internal Affairs, Matiya Kasaija told Daily Monitor that there is no justified reason for any Rwandan to seek refuge in Uganda because Rwanda has become a stable and peaceful country.   Ambassador Kabonero further said that the Rwandan group entered the country was estimated at 7,000 but the number decreased from 7,000 to 5,000 following mixing up of the rest of migrants with the local population.   According to the UNHCR the number of Rwandan refugees and asylum seekers in Uganda was estimated at 18,902 in 2004 while DRC and Burundians people counted 14,982 and 663 respectively.   March, 2006, the government of the United Republic of Tanzania announced the plan to expulse some 60,000 people of Rwandan origin who entered the country since 1962. Those Rwandans were admitted to live among local Tanzanian population instead of living in the refugees camps at that period of time but due to the dramatic burden that Kagera region experienced during the 1994 influx, the government decided to expulse the Rwandans senior migrants in the country.   AS/PB © Hirondelle News Agency